Transparency? Why Republican Comer Won't Let the Clintons Testify in Public

Under Republican control, the aims of the House Oversight Committee are to promote partisan narratives rather than to reveal facts and advance public understanding of national issues. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), its chairman, has displayed that routinely self-serving approach in the committee's "investigation" of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal -- and especially in his zeal to subpoena Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Comer was never among the tiny handful of Republicans who demanded that the Trump administration release the government's files on the deceased sex predator. Instead, the leaden Comer dutifully followed President Donald Trump's lead in defecting public anger over the case. Focusing on the Clintons, who know little (Bill) or nothing (Hillary) about this matter, is exactly how Trump has handled his own troubling connections with Epstein for the past several years.

With tens of thousands of mentions of Trump in the released Epstein materials, that distraction is more urgent than ever. And the Clintons somehow remain enticing targets for politicians like Comer and even some of the Democrats on his committee.

But after resisting the subpoenas for months -- until it became clear that a vote to hold them in contempt would pass the House -- the Clintons have flipped Comer's script. Rather than give depositions behind closed doors, as the Republicans evidently prefer, the former president and secretary of state have demanded that the committee question them in a public hearing.

On Feb. 5, Hillary Clinton posted this challenge on X:

"For six months, we engaged Republicans on the Oversight Committee in good faith. We told them what we know, under oath. They ignored all of it. They moved the goalposts and turned accountability into an exercise in distraction."

In a followup post, she urged Comer to "stop the games."

"If you want this fight, @RepJamesComer, let's have it -- in public. You love to talk about transparency. There's nothing more transparent than a public hearing, cameras on. We will be there."

Comer is not about to accept that challenge, which he ignored.

First, he knows how that worked out when Hillary Clinton showed up to testify about the Benghazi terror attack for 11 hours, at the behest of his predecessor, former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) -- in short, not well for Gowdy and the Republicans, who made themselves look stupid as Clinton briskly schooled them. It's not at all clear that Comer, a plodding character often mocked in whispers by his fellow Republicans, would fare better against both Clintons.

Second, Comer is obviously planning to pursue the devious strategy that proved more successful for Gowdy during the Benghazi farce -- to record the depositions and then selectively leak snippets that create a misleading impression of the testimony. That is how Gowdy abused Sidney Blumenthal, the journalist and former Clinton White House aide called to testify privately for nine hours during that inquest in 2015.

I wrote extensively about that clown show -- and the complicity that Gowdy enjoyed from the New York Times' Washington bureau, which eagerly lapped up the leaks -- in a series of posts. Gowdy and his stooges fabricated a tale about Blumenthal's supposed "business interests" in Libya and how they had influenced Clinton's policy. Having invented that diverting story, the Republicans could not afford to let the public see and hear Blumenthal demolishing it.

Despite protests from Democrats, notably the late and highly esteemed Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), a much sturdier figure than the current ranking Democrat, Blumenthal's testimony was kept under wraps -- where it remains to this day. Neither Gowdy nor his fellow Republicans wanted the public to see how they had misused their power to spread falsehoods, pursue partisan grudges unrelated to Benghazi, and generally make fools of themselves.

Will House Democrats, the Epstein victims and the media allow Comer to get away with the same game? For all their rhetoric about "transparency," not to mention similar high-minded blather from the Republicans, why would they permit this scam?

Comer's scheme to conceal and then distort the Clintons' testimony is the latest episode in the ongoing Trump coverup. It would be a shame indeed to allow such a deception to proceed.

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To find out more about Joe Conason and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.